Jonas will not feature at right back for Newcastle.
Posted on June 22nd, 2010 | 32 Comments |
Our lad Jonas has been playing in a position that us fans are unaccustomed to seeing him in, right-back, which kind of lead to a train of thought that perhaps he could cover in that position for us when he returns from World Cup duty, especially now it seems that Danny Simpson looks likely to miss the start of the new Premier League season. In fairness, he hasn’t been overly impressive, but Argentina coach Diego Maradona seems to rate him in that position, and he has played in both group matches thus far. He won’t be in action later though as he serves a one match ban earned by picking up a yellow card in each of his previous two games, but he should return to the starting line-up when the knockout stages begin.
Despite his showing at the World Cup, it seems that Newcastle manager, Chris Hughton, will resist the urge to use Jonas as temporary cover for our own right-back slot as he would prefer to use Jonas as an attacking force in his more familiar left-wing role.
“I spoke to him the day before the Nigeria game and I knew he was going to be playing there. The Argentina coach likes him there and played him at right-back before the World Cup.”
“I have not considered him there, but I know it’s a position which at certain stages Jonas can drop into as he is good at the defensive side of the game. However, it is not a position for which I will be considering him.”
Jonas has attracted criticism from various pundits at the World Cup, and particularly from Newcastle legend Alan Shearer who described him as the weak link in a strong Argentina team for his display at right-back against Nigeria. But in fairness, it’s hardly a position that he has been used to playing in for the last couple of seasons.
In my opinion, when combined with Jose Enrique, Jonas helps to make a pretty decent left-side for Newcastle as he does track back to help out the defence whilst also giving us the option of breaking forward quickly. If he was played at right-back then we would lose that in our team and a fair chunk of our limited creativity would be taken away.
Ryan Taylor will be expected to be given a run of games in his favoured position whilst Simpson recovers, and we also have Steven Taylor who can cover at right-back if we become desperate. Despite that though, Hughton hasn’t ruled out dipping into the transfer market if we need cover the position.
“My priority is to make sure we are covered in every area by the start of the season. That might mean looking for someone else if that gives us the right level of competition.”
“It is not necessarily going to be the case that we bring someone else in. We already have players who can play that position, and it is something we will have to look at closely.”
I’m happy that we will be keeping Jonas as an attacking threat, as despite the fact he can frustrate at times, and that his final ball can be somewhat wayward on occasion, he does possess the ability to do something different, to unlock a defence.
For that alone, he is worth sticking on the left.
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
Didn’t everyone know that Jonas was played there(with argentina) before the WC?